Welcome to the Future of Advertising Insight Center

After decades of stasis, all hell is breaking loose in the ad business. With the explosion of new media and technologies and the rise of empowered (and skeptical) consumers, marketers are finding that the old bag of tricks no longer works so well. And they’re inventing fundamentally new ways to pursue advertising’s principal job: persuasion.

This HBR Insight Center on the future of advertising will explore the transformation. We’ll dig into the technologies that are reinventing how companies connect with customers, and look at how big data and new analytic tools are allowing advertisers to fine tune and microtarget their messaging in real time. Our bloggers will also examine the new breed of consumer that, increasingly, rejects interruptive messages and demands that advertising present itself only when invited — and then only if the message offers value. And we’ll look at consumers’ growing involvement in advertising, both as arbiters and creative collaborators. This exploration happens in tandem with our spotlight on advertising in the March issue of HBR.

Over the course of the next four weeks, you’ll encounter provocative contributions from thought-leading practitioners and scholars including Jerry Wind, the director of Wharton’s Future of Advertising program, Sir Martin Sorrell, the CEO of WPP Group, Bonin Bough, VP of Global Media and Consumer Engagement at Mondelez International, and Baba Shetty, CEO of Newsweek/Daily Beast. HBR editor-at-large Julia Kirby will expand on her article, “Creative That Cracks the Code,” with a series of posts highlighting particularly effective ad campaigns. Also from the magazine, Wes Nichols dives into Advertising Analytics 2.0, Sunil Gupta says For Mobile Devices, Think Apps, Not Ads, and Jeffrey F. Rayport explores Advertising’s New Medium: Human Experience.

We’d like to know what you think works as well. What new kinds of advertising really stick with you? Where are mobile and social moving your industry? What of the rise of social tv? We look forward to hearing what the future of advertising looks like to you.